Blessing Individuals Not Yet Under Covenant

Fort Collins Colorado Temple - Open House, August 19, 2016

“Enabling the exaltation of the living and the dead is the Lord’s purpose for building temples and performing vicarious ordinances. We do not worship in holy temples solely to have a memorable individual or family experience. Rather, we seek to fulfill the divinely appointed responsibility to offer the ordinances of salvation and exaltation to the entire human family. Planting in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; turning the hearts of the children to their own fathers; and performing family history research and vicarious ordinances in the temple are labors that bless individuals in the spirit world not yet under covenant.” 

– Elder David A. Bednar, “Missionary, Family History, and Temple Work,” Ensign, October 2014.